Videos

Dr. Diamond's daughter has made a series of videos featuring Dr. Diamond discussing various aspects of his work. These videos are available at www.youtube.com/miltondiamond, or
can be watched individually from this web site by following this link.

United Nations speaks out against genital-normalizing surgery without the consent of the subject

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has issued a
statement calling for an end to genital-normalizing surgeries without
the consent of the affected person. Specifically, paragraph 88 (recommendation 3) of
the Rapporteur’s report on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment in health care settings reads as follows:

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons:
The Special Rapporteur calls upon all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments, including forced genital-normalizing surgery, involuntary sterilization, unethical experimentation, medical display, “reparative therapies” or “conversion therapies”, when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned. He also calls upon them to outlaw forced or coerced sterilization in all circumstances and provide special protection to individuals belonging to marginalized groups.

Perform no major surgery for cosmetic reasons alone; only for conditions related to physical/medical health. This will entail a great deal of explanation needed for the parents who will want their children to “look normal.” Explain to them that appearances during childhood, while not typical of other children, may be of less importance than functionality and post pubertal erotic sensitivity of the genitalia. Surgery can potentially impair sexual/erotic function. Therefore such surgery, which includes all clitoral surgery and any sex reassignment, should typically wait until puberty or after when the patient is able to give truly informed consent.

Dr. Diamond says:

When Ken Kipnis and I wrote our first critique of how
the medical community was dealing with intersex matters in 1998, and
then when I brought it up to them at the American Academy of Pediatrics
meeting in 1998, I felt we were gnats that would be dismissed and
strongly decried.

And when Hazel Beh and I wrote our first legal and ethical paper on the
subject of how intersexed individuals ought be ethically and legally
dealt with in 2000, little did we think how the idea would spread.

The ball was picked up by others, particularly Anne Tamar-Mattis who
founded AIC (Advocates for Informed Choice), and all those efforts have
paid off in ways that could not have been predicted. The UN recognition
is obviously a major accomplishment. It is a wonderful acknowledgement
of the importance of what we have all been working toward.

NEW ZEALAND DOCUMENTARY ON INTERSEX

A television documentary fronted by Mani Bruce Mitchell has been televised in New Zealand in July 2011, and has been very well received. It has been divided into segments of approximately ten minutes each and placed on Youtube, so that anybody anywhere can watch it. (Dr. Diamond makes a brief appearance in Part 2.)